All those things likely apply to Devon Kidd. She's the girl – now a full-grown woman -- who appeared in the video clip for the track, and she's been found by Marc Tyler Nobleman, the same video-girl sleuth who recently tracked down Sherrie from Steve Perry's solo hit "Oh Sherrie."

Kidd is featured in an interview on Nobleman's Noblemania blog where she reveals that her session on the video's old-school backyard half-pipe led her — much to her father's displeasure — to pursue professional downhill skateboarding.

This and the fact that the song and the clip are mostly set in the San Fernando Valley really hit home for me, since I grew up in the Valley and at one time was extremely into skateboarding. In fact, when I was in junior high, I broke my leg at Skatercross, then a skateboard park in Reseda.

Speaking of Reseda, as much as I love "Free Fallin'," there's something that's always bugged me about it. At one point, Petty sings, "It's a long day living in Reseda / There's a freeway runnin' through the yard." Sorry Tom, there are no freeways running through Reseda. The 405 runs through Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys, and the 101 goes through Encino and Tarzana, but Reseda is right smack in the middle. It's freeway-close, but there is no freeway going through anyone's yard there. Tom should know better. At the time this album came out — and for several years prior — he owned a home in nearby Encino, which was torched by an arsonist in 1987 and later rebuilt.